Whole Foods Nod - Khalid Hussain

Whole Foods Nod

I was at a Whole Foods in a Connecticut suburb with my partner and his sister this weekend. As we were checking out, I noticed a young man sitting at a table in the dining area. His eyes were half closed and his jaw was slack. At first I thought he might have had cerebral palsy or something. Then I noticed that there was a young woman with him who was urgently trying to get him to press a napkin to her upper arm. Their complexion looked ruddy, probably from sun exposure, possibly combined with poor hygiene. I noticed that they both had backpacks on the table. Pretty soon it occurred to me that they might be junkies, possibly homeless or maybe wandering around, hitchhiking or something: he nodding out and she trying to get him to blot some blood from an injection site. Lovely.

Not something I expected to see at a pretentious, suburban, "upscale" mall.